Additional electric shaver check
 

At FRA I wanted to check in to a flight to the US. Even before check-in, baggage to be checked in gets X-rayed. They saw an electric shaver in one of my suitcases and said they needed to further check it. I was surprised. While waiting for a guy (Bundespolizei?) with special equipment needed for this, I asked what this is about, and they said it checks for organic substances/residues that remained on the metal surface for a long time and that might reveal where I may have been with the shaver (?!?). They added that every once in a while they randomly pick someone whose shaver is to be checked. When the guy we were waiting for finally arrived, he had a small device in his hand that I could not really see and moved it around the shaver, without actually touching it I think. Then he left and I was told we had to wait for the result. 10 more minutes later I was told all OK.

Does anyone know what this is all about?

That is very, very strange. I don't carry an electric razor but if somebody wanted to examine my hairbrush or toothbrush for a similar reason I'd really object. I'd think they were doing something creepy like collecting my DNA. I'm interested to hear if somebody can shed some light on what they were really doing.

It's simple, the French have never shaven before and they wanted to see what your electric shaver looks like.






/ok just kidding. I love the French so please this is just a joke. :)

That'd be funny if this didn't happen in Germany. :D

Though I'm surprised that they didn't give deodorant the once over too. ;)

Exactly what you were told. And yes, it is a shame it takes 10 minutes first for the checker to come to the suitcase, and then another 10 minutes for him to go back to wherever he came from...

HTB.

What about the new souped-up motorized version of Gillette Mach3Turbo razor (namely, IIRC, Mach3Power)? FRA not like those either. FRA security had some members who had a fetish for seizing the disposable Mach blades. :eek: I would not look kindly on their seizing the whole razor as well.

There's plenty of "organic substances/residue" on my electric razor -- whiskers and dead skin.

Thanks for your reply, but what organic substances are these, and what locations are revealed by them? Geographical locations or anatomical locations...? And why would the result of the check be "not OK"?

OK, that was really funny. And I love unpasturized cheese!

I imagine they're looking for explosive compounds that got lodged in your beard hair.

I'm pretty sure the "organic" here was simply a more discreet reference to "explosive traces". "Where you've been" was also a more discreet way to say "if you've been around any high explosive material". The non-contact swiping appears to be a vapor absorption technique that is used for testing of peroxide-based high explosives, e.g, TATP. That's just my guess.

Additionally, maybe the security services have reason to believe (jihadi websites?) electric shavers could be used, in an improvised way, in peroxide-based explosive production (e.g., mixing).

Why not just send them thru a puffer and be done in 15 seconds?

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Because the ETD and ETP machines can't detect TATP or other peroxide-based explosives. This is the reason for the liquids ban. The TSA is now beginning to introduce techniques to test for peroxide-based explosives.